World Through Walls
by Insane Troll Logic
Summary: Logan hasn't seen Dean since the shooting but their paths are about to collide again. Sequel to World Behind Windows
1. one

**Title: World Through Walls**  
**Rating:** PG-13ish  
**Disclaimer:** I can lay no claims on DA or SPN  
**SPOILERS:** General DA, SPN though season four  
**Summary:** Logan hasn't seen Dean since the shooting but their paths are about to collide again. (Sequel to World Behind Windows)  
**Author's Note:** Like with all of my fic, this is a mirror post from LJ. This version will always be running at least one chapter behind what is posted there.

**World Through Walls**

**One**

In a strange sort of way, he knows he's dreaming.

Knows he has to be dreaming because this was all over years ago.

He hasn't had a dream about the blonde girl with the red dress since he woke up in the hospital minus functioning legs and he doesn't have any reason for starting now. Except the girl in red is creeping toward him with a smirk on her face. Except he is seeing white eyes and remembering white light.

"Winchester, Winchester, Winchester, Cale. Two by two, both doomed to fail. Winchester, Win---"

Logan wakes up in a cold sweat. It is still dark outside but he knows he won't be going back to sleep anytime soon.

He hasn't heard from Dean Winchester in two months.

He doesn't know why he's so worried. It's not like Dean calls him with any regularity. It's a postcard about once a month and Logan leaving a message in the Winchester drop box whenever Eyes Only finds anything paranormal instead of just criminal. But Dean always sent something after he'd finished a job Logan had tipped him on. It would come in two weeks later, dated at the top with a few chatty lines about him and his brother that don't say a thing about monsters but are more a way of saying _I'm here. I'm alive._ The postcards are never signed but the handwriting was familiar and it makes Logan feel better to know Dean is out there.

But he hasn't heard from Dean in two months. Which is weird because the last he heard, the Winchester brothers were making their way up the west coast. Logan had left a message about a rash of poltergeists almost five weeks ago and he'd been expecting Dean to show up on his doorstep, ten years older with the same smirk and a few new scars.

He has been looking forward to it for a long time.

If only to prove he hadn't dreamed it all.

He hasn't seen Dean since he woke up in the hospital. Hasn't seen Dean since 2009 and now it's 2022 and staring at the transgenic called Alec he keeps feeling that pang for the man who kept him alive in the aftermath of the shooting.

Yesterday, he strapped on the exoskeleton, loaded his gun with homemade salt rounds and took care of the problem. He broke the exo, broke his ankle and found himself back in the wheelchair as the last of the transgenic blood was starting to wear out.

He knows he's not going to stand back up.

And maybe that's why he's thinking of Dean Winchester right now. Maybe that's why he's scrounging through his old files looking for every scrap of paper the man has sent him over the past two and a half years. Maybe that's why he's freaking out over missing his stack of post cards even though they were probably part of the mess that had been lost in his penthouse last year.

He isn't panicking. He just leaves another message on the Winchester's answering machine, sorts through the normal jumble of Terminal City muck, does a half hour research on Eyes Only's newest project and goes back to sleep thinking of how numb his broken ankle feels and how things are going to have to work themselves out in the morning.

He wakes up in daylight to a commotion outside his window and he starts the day by pushing himself up out of bed, planting his broken ankle on the ground and collapsing in a heap.

But he adjusts just like he always adjusts. Like he'd learned to adjust in 2009 where he'd woken up to ride shotgun to a demon hunting Dean Winchester. Just like he'd learned to adjust again when he woke up in his right time missing motion from all of his lower extremities.

The wheelchair is a familiar prison and pushing himself out of the door feels strangely inevitable like he was never meant to be on his feet for long.

Terminal City moves twenty times faster than he does, their world spinning at hyper speed. He wants to think he used to move that fast in his youth, or maybe he moved that fast in the few short months where he hunted ghost and demons with Dean Winchester but sitting right now, staring up at the world from his permanent vantage point, he can't imagine it.

"What happened to you?" Max asks. "Been a while since you went with the wheels."

Poltergeist problem but she doesn't need to know that. The government has made it their business to remove the transgenic problem. White is making his push. The whole thing was a mess and he still can't think of anything but the girl in the red dress mocking him from his dreams.

"You seen Alec?" he asks.

Max looks surprised. But then again she always looks surprised when Logan asks about Alec, like their tentative friendship was something of an affront to nature itself.

But Logan genuinely likes Alec. At first the friendship had been largely to satisfy his curiosity at the man's physical similarity to Dean but after a few roadblocks along the ways, it had progressed into the first friendship Logan had made in years.

Still, he knows most people would never have gotten over their first impression of a double-crossing Manticore agent sent to assassinate his alter ego. He wouldn't have given Alec a second glance if it wasn't for Dean.

"No," Max says. "But he's got a shift at Jam Pony. Shouldn't be too hard to track down if you need him."

Logan doesn't need to track him down so he doesn't say anything else. Max is standing next to him, far enough away so that to reach out and touch her would be impossible. They have learned this dance well, anything else would result in his death, but he misses the old days, long nights bent close together over a computer screen or in a car on a stakeout. He doesn't even long for a kiss. He hadn't known enough of that to miss it. All he wants is a friendly pat on the shoulder that won't get him killed.

It's too dangerous now and Logan understands but he wonders what will happen if the virus is ever cured. He half suspects that after two years, the habits are too ingrained to ever change.

"I've got some research I could be doing," Logan says.

"And I've got to get back to the mission."

He wonders when she stopped being his best friend.

He loses himself in the research. He's been pouring over texts of prophecy for the past three days, something he never would have considered before the accident three years ago. But he believes in nightmares now so it's only logical he believed in the rest of the occult stuff that came with it.

On the side he is running his usual scan of the informant net for possible Eyes Only cases and another through the newspapers for events of paranormal nature.

He has come the to the unavoidable conclusion that his life is incredibly strange.

But he's adjusted. If he has to split his time between transgenics and Eyes Only and hunters, then that's what he'll do.

There is a definite nest of vampires in Idaho, a businessman repackaging drugs in Seattle and the cult planning an apocalypse. He elects to focus on the cult. He is getting nowhere and suspects that he will be get nowhere until they actually start to make their move. This is not a scenario he likes.

He calls a hunter from his slowly mounting list of paranormal friendly contacts so he can feel like he accomplished something.

At three PM everything goes to hell, but it's not Terminal City unless there is at least one major crisis. He just hopes no one wound up in a zoo this time. He considers for a brief moment going outside to confront the problem and is even to the point of pushing himself to his feet when he remembers the broken ankle and the lack of supercharged blood and he sinks back, selfishly wanting to keep up his illusion of strength for as long as he possibly can.

He pulls up a news feed within minutes. An explosion in sector four. Seattle is no stranger to explosions these days but they still make Logan's heart leap up in his chest. Nine to one this was aimed at the transgenic and the flood of people outside were transgenics ushering one another into their infirmary. Logan doesn't have the medical expertise to help this so he sits and watches with mounting horror wondering if Eyes Only could say anything to make this kind of violence stop.

He doesn't know how long he sat watching but he is snapped from his trance by a rap on the door. One of the younger X-6's poked their head through. Logan is ashamed to say he doesn't know the boy's name. "Mr. Logan? We need you in the med bay."

"I don't know if there's anything I can do," Logan says tiredly.

"It's Alec, Mr. Logan," the boy says. "He was unconscious when they brought him in."

There's a lurching panic in Logan's chest. "Is he all right?"

The kid shakes his head vehemently. "He woke up, Mr. Logan but there's something wrong. You should come. Max thinks maybe you can help."

He doesn't know how. He hasn't felt like he could help for years now but he's Logan Cale so he's going to try. "Let's go," he says, wheeling himself out the door toward what the transgenics have designated their infirmary. He can hear signs of the fight before he sees it. There is the crash of someone being thrown into a wall. There is a clamor of excitable voices. Max says, "Alec, look you're hurt and you're confused but you need to calm down."

And then a different voice—one Logan isn't used to hearing speak with quite this level of intensity—says, "Are you all out of your freaking mind? Who the hell is Alec? Who the hell are you? Where the hell am I? Where's—"

Logan pushes the door open and for a moment, all eyes swivel toward him. Alec blinks like it's the first time he's seen him in years and chokes, "_Logan?_"

Logan's eyes widen. There are a million things off with this Alec. It's something about the way he carries himself, the slight slouch rather than the military straight posture. It's something about the panic in the eyes of someone trained to keep those ticks under wraps. It was in the inflection of the voice and the pattern of words. Piled up together it screamed that this man in front of him was not Alec.

Nonetheless, it is someone he recognizes immediately. "_Dean_?"

Max throws up her hands in frustration. "Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"


	2. two

**Two**

Dean calms but only slightly, casting a weary eye at Max before looking back to Logan. "Where's my brother?"

"Brother?" Max repeats. "Alec, this isn't funny."

"My name's not Alec," Dean growls in her direction. "Logan, where's Sam? Is he all right? There was an explosion. There was a---" He hesitates and suddenly the mask is back in place. "There was a hostile threat. I need to find him."

"I have no idea where Sam is," Logan says. "Calm down."

"Calm down," Dean says with a bark of hysterical laughter. "There was a _thing _and then there was an _explosion _and Sammy was shouting and then I was here..." He looks around as if truly noticing his surroundings. "I'm here and you're here and you definitely know who I am." He squeezes his eyes shut. "Dude, what year is it?"

"You've got to be kidding me," Max groans.

"It's 2022," Logan says.

Dean sinks back against the hospital bed, looking momentarily skyward. "Of course it is." He levels his gaze. "So is this body me of the future or am I borrowing some poor bastard's meat suit."

"His name is Alec," Logan says.

"Son of a bitch," Dean mumbles.

"Tell me about it."

"Logan," Max's voice cut through the air, the intangible equivalent of grabbing him by the arm and forcibly steering him out of the room.

He knew this roll even better than the old one. "You going to be all right for a second."

"I'm pretty freaking far from all right, but yeah, I'm good for a minute."

Outside, Max is forced to lower her voice. There were a multitude of other transgenics around, all of them with enhanced hearing, all of them more than willing to eavesdrop if voices were raised because as Logan has found out, transgenics were more gossipy than teenage girls. "Logan, you're going to tell me what's going on."

It's an order. Logan blinks. He remembers briefly how the two of them used to be a team.

He does not enjoy taking orders.

"That's not Alec," he says simply.

"Of course it's Alec! Who else could it be?"

"Dean Winchester," Logan says evenly.

"Dean Winchester? Fine. Say I do believe that Alec has been body swapped with this _Dean Winchester _instead of faking a personality transplant in order to pull some prank. How the hell do you know him?"

Logan draws himself in. This is not something he has discussed with Max. In reality, this is not something he has discussed with anyone. It was too important. Too fantastic. "I met him before the shooting," he lies. "I did have a life before you came along."

Something like hurt flashes through her eyes and he regrets his words immediately but not to the point of taking them back. This is where they were now, lashing out because they could reach out. He squeezes his eyes shut. "I don't really care if you believe me or not. I'm going to go talk to Dean."

He leaves Max standing there in the chaos of Terminal City and turns back to Dean, shutting the door behind him. It is disconcerting to watch. Dean is a mass of jitters while Alec had been the picture of tranquility no matter the situation. "Been a while, huh, Logan," Dean says. "Haven't heard a word since you disappeared in a flash of white light."

"Three years for me," Logan says, folding his arms across his chest.

"I was starting to think I dreamed you," Dean says. "Or that Sam made you up out of thin air. We found you—past you that is. Couldn't believe you where the same guy." He lets out a harsh snort of laughter. "Past you was kind of an asshole."

"People change."

"Been about three months for me. And let me tell you, they sure as hell felt like three years."

"Tell me about it."

They lapse into silence but it's nothing like the uncomfortable silences he tends to share with Max. It's something different, the two of them already easing back to their easy comrodery from their bizarre few months in 2009.

"So how do we fix this?" Logan finally asks.

"No idea," Dean says. "Me and Sam did the body swap thing a few times when we were younger and let me tell you it's annoying as hell to wake up and suddenly be yeti-sized but it's never done the swap through time before."

"How'd you fix it before?"

"Depended on what did it. Spells usually reset on their own. If it's a demon, you gank it and you're fine. Curses always have some hidden catch you have to trip. This time me and Sam were after a demon and something jumped us. There was a flash of light and then I woke up here. No idea which one it could have been."

Logan settles back into the his wheelchair, settles in for the long haul. "And what happens to Alec?"

"The poor bastard who's body I'm wearing?" He shrugs and Logan can see just how much the idea bothers him. "Back in 2009 with Sammy if I had to guess. Probably having the same conversation we're having now. He inherited more than a few problems."

"He's not the only one."

Dean shoots him a look. "The Devil just busted out of hell."

"That's a very big problem."

"Obviously we did something to stop it," Dean says. "Because while this place looks like shit it doesn't exactly look like hell."

"You're in Terminal City. Alec was in an explosion. He was brought back here for medical treatment."

"Guess I should be glad Alec shares my aversion to hospitals, huh?" Dean swings his arms back and forth and flexes his fingers. "Everything seems to be in working order though. I feel better than I have in years. Click in the shoulder's gone. Ribs don't hurt. I can't remember the last time I didn't feel like I'd just been run over by a truck."

Logan laughs because he doesn't know what else to do. Doesn't know how else to explain Alec and Manticore, cloning and genetic engineering. They are from different worlds with different problems and different people. They have coexisted before and they will make it work again but they don't quite fit together. They never have.

"So," Dean says finally. "Research?"

"Yeah."

Got to get Dean back so he can put the Devil back in Hell and save the world.

Sadly it is not the weirdest thing that has happened in the past three years.

* * *

They wind up back in Logan's room with a dozen books spread across all available surfaces. Logan's head hurts. There are demons of every sort, the seven deadly sins but nothing the can reach through time and swap two men who look identical but aren't.

"Did you notice anything different about the demon?" Logan asks. "Anything about the eyes."

"No." Dean snaps his own book shut and grabs a new one. "I always hated this part of the job. This was always Sam's gig."

"I'm used to research," Logan says, turning a page. "If there's a way to get you back we'll find it."

Dean leans back in his chair, pointedly ignoring the heaps of research. "So you got shot, huh?"

The question comes abruptly but it's not said with malice. It's just a statement of how things are. "Yeah," Logan says.

"That really sucks, man."

Logan feels a rush of warmth at this man. It may have been the first time since the shooting someone had _gotten it_. Everyone else sees the chair before the person, focusing on the disability like it was something that defined him rather than something that just _happened _to him. "Yeah," he says, just a little hoarsely. "Yeah, it really did."

"All right." Dean claps his hands together. "Awkward acknowledgement over. There's only one thing outside of my little brother that I know can yank some poor sap out of his time and dump in another and that's an angel."

"An angel?"

"Don't get your hopes too high, future boy. Every angel I've ever met has been a dick. Let's get a move on, there's some stuff I need to pick up if we're going to do this."

"What are we doing?"

"We're summoning Castiel."

"Castiel? We're summoning an angel? Are you out of your mind? Do you know what sort of people hang out here?"

"Believe me, I'm no stranger to sinning."

Logan is a little more worried about transgenics and people playing God.

"Besides," Dean continues. "Cas is an old friend."

"I thought all the angels you've met are dicks."

Dean flashes him a smile. The kind of smile Logan has come to associate with 2009 and the Winchesters and the mess that had come with it. It was resignation and fearlessness tinged with desperation. Fighting blind and way over his head but still fighting. "Hey," he says lightly. "Who says you can't be friends with dicks? You're friends with me."

Logan shakes his head. "Guess you're right. Let's go summon an angel."

* * *

Moving through Terminal City, Dean is a man on a wire. He keeps flinching every time he sees a nomilie and Logan hates himself for not stopping to explain before this all. "Nothing to worry about," he says when Dean shoots yet another panicked look in his direction. "I'll explain later."

"Hey, Alec," the half lizard is grinning at him, cigar hanging from his lip.

"Hey yourself," grunts Dean.

His fingers curl into fists.

"Anyone in 20-12, Mole?" Logan asks.

"Free up."

"You think you can make it stay that way."

Mole scowls.

Logan sighs. "There's a pack of cigars in it for you."

"That's what I call a deal, Cale. Room's yours."

"This place is really freaking weird," Dean hisses to Logan. Three passing X-6s hear him.

It's a relief when the get to room 20-12 and close the door behind them. It is a large room with thick walls and doors that lock from the inside, a room that typically functions as a panic room, a room where dozens of transgenics had huddled during the siege last year.

"What the hell is this place?"

Logan shut the door carefully behind them. "I think the best way to describe it is a refugee camp for transhumans."

"And I say again, what the hell?"

"In the late nineties the government funded a campaign to genetically engineer the perfect soldier. They used DNA from various sources including animals. Some of the early mixes were less than perfect. Anyway, about two years ago, the facility was destroyed leaving the soldiers to scatter."

"This is insane. You know this is insane, right?"

"You're about to summon an angel to help you get back to the past."

"Yeah, well at least I'm not friends with the creature from the black lagoon. You got any tentacles I should be aware of?"

"I'm human as the come, Dean. But you might want to get over some of these prejudices of yours because the guy who's body you're wearing is very much a transgenic."

"Son of a bitch," Dean hisses. "Please don't tell me I look like I'm half bat. I need to get out of here. I've got a reputation to uphold."

"What do we need to do the summoning?" Logan asks, moving toward the emergency supplies. "I think we've got more or—"

"Cas!" Dean howls, throwing his head back. "You son of a bitch. We had this talk, you're supposed to freaking warn me before you bust out the DeLoreans."

Logan is pretty sure that is not how you are supposed to go about summoning an angel.

"Damnit, Cas, I know you're up there. Why don't you get your lily white ass down here and tell us what the hell is going on."

Then out of nowhere, there is a sound of something like fluttering wings and when Logan turns around there's a man standing behind him. A man in a trench coat with a white shirt and a loose tie. He has dark hair, light eyes and a five-o'clock shadow.

"Cas, you're a sight for sore eyes," Dean says. "How about getting me out of this time and back where I belong."

"I'm afraid things are not as simple as they seem."

Dean leans back against the wall. "Of course they aren't. Cas, come on, angels are the only bunch I know that can do the time warp at will. What gives?"

"It should be noted that angels are not the only beings who have within their power the ability to manipulate time. Fallen angels also command this power."

"Great," Dean says. "So Lucifer and his buddies decided it was time for me to stop in and say hey to future boy. Fine. I'm cool with that. But why? In what possible universe is this a good idea for anyone involved?"

"It is a commonly known fact in both heaven and hell that Dean Winchester is the only one capable of stopping Lucifer's rise. Hell has simply used the opportunity to remove you from the equation."

"I get that. But you can put me back, right?"

Castiel looks away but his expression does not change. "I cannot."

"What?"

"Only the demon who created the warp has the ability to undo it. It is shielded from my eyes. But if this situation is not remedied I fear all will be lost."

"What happened to Alec?" Logan cuts in sharply. "He didn't just disappear, right?"

"The one called Alec now occupies the space that was once Dean's."

"So the have animal freak show has my body now. Super. How about Sam. Is he all right?"

Castiel's fixes Dean with a stony glare. "At the point of the timeline's interruption he is in good health but already the changes from this abomination's plot are trickling through to this present. I will shield you both from these effects as long as I am able."

"Hold on. Changes?" Logan says. "What do you mean, chan---"

But Castiel is gone in a flutter of wings.


	3. three

_Quick reply to the common question of the reviewers: No, Sam and Alec will not be involved in this series. An addition of that plotline would do nothing but make the story more repetative. World Behind Windows and World Through Walls are very much stories about Logan and Dean. If your interest does not lie with these two, allow me to do the self-promotion thing and point you towards the What Comes Around 'Verse instead._

**Three**

"Shield us from what?" Logan asks, panic rising. "I'm all right with a lot of weird things but..."

There is a loud incessant knocking on the door and a second later, Max crashes through, fists clenched in fury. Dean stares at her, eyes open. "Green guy is so losing his cigars."

"Where's Alec?" Max demands, moving too fast for Logan to see. In a split second, she has Dean pinned to the wall by the neck.

Logan's first instinct is to reach out and touch her. To pull her away from his friend before she can kill him but he notes her bare forearms and his own ungloved palms. "What the hell are you doing, Max?"

"I talked to psy-ops and they can't tell me much but they can tell me that Alec's gone and this thing is in his place." She tightens her grip and sneers at Dean. "What are you?"

"Max, I already told you who he is."

"One of White's men?" Max presses. "Another clone?"

Logan can see Dean's lips trying to form his name. No sound comes out.

"You're killing him!"

"Tell me who you are!"

"Kill him and Alec's gone too."

Max's head snaps to Logan and Dean uses the distraction to break Max's hold on him. He collapses to the floor gasping for air as he hisses, "Christo! Christo, you crazy bitch."

Nothing happens. There is no flash of black in Max's eyes. Dean scrambles to his feet in a kind of fury that looks so unlike Alec Logan doesn't know how anyone could confuse the two. "Calm down, Dean," Logan snaps. "Everything's fine here."

Max alternates her gaze between Logan and Dean, confused with the former, incredibly wary of the later. Finally, she settles on Logan and says, "You and me. We need to talk."

"Dean," Logan says. "See you back at the room."

Dean nods once. Max glances over her shoulder and shouts, "Mole. Follow him there. Leave him alone but make sure there's no attempt to leave."

"He doesn't need a babysitter," Logan snaps.

"Shut the door behind you," Max orders.

The door slamming sounds impossibly loud even to Logan's normal, human ears and he imagines briefly that he can feel the reverberations snaking up through his broken ankle. "Max, what's going on?"

"What's going on?" Max repeats. "I don't even know where to start."

"You can start with why this is all suddenly directed at me. In case you haven't forgot, I'm on your side here."

Max's eyes are icy when they finally connect with his own. Not a single ounce of their usual affection. "Tell me what's going on with Alec."

"We've already had this conversation, Max," Logan says, exasperated. She is standing too close for his taste. Inches between flesh rather than feet. He would retreat if he didn't think she would take it as a sign of weakness. It's been a long time since they were this careless. "Remember? This morning. That's Dean Winchester and I need you to trust me."

"Trust you?" Max's voice is filled with the kind of venom usually reserved for Alec at his most annoying. It hasn't been directed at him in almost three years. "Why the hell should I trust you? Alec's the only chance we had at infiltration and then yesterday, about three hours after we let you in on this little place, Alec drops us the sign for extraction. When we get there, the place is on fire and the guy we pull out isn't Alec. Which means he must be cult." She meets his eyes. "Which means _you _must be cult."

Logan is genuinely speechless.

"Tell me something, Logan," Max pleads. "I don't want to believe it but you're not really doing a hell of a lot to defend yourself."

"I didn't even know Alec was on an infiltration." Logan presses a hand to his temple. "I thought he was at Jam Pony this morning. I swear."

Max's face softens just a little and she makes a move toward him. Logan immediately moves the wheelchair in reverse to maintain the distance. It's a habit now, ingrained just as much as brushing his teeth before bed. There must always be at least six inches between Max's largest reach and skin contact with Logan.

Always.

But Max is looking at him strangely. Looking at him like she doesn't understand this distance. "What the hell is wrong with you, Logan?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," Logan says. He feels like he is back in 2009, sitting next to Dean Winchester, bluffing his way through a life that isn't his. "I didn't sell you out and Dean isn't cult. I promise."

"I want to believe you."

"So believe me."

"It's not that easy."

"Fine." Logan squeezes his eyes shut. "Then give me a day. Twenty-four hours. I need to figure it out for myself before I even think of explaining it to you."

"All right," Max breathes. "But you and looks like Alec are in your room. We'll be watching. If you try to leave, the orders are to take you out. No chances."

And she'd do it if she had to. She'd do it herself, put Logan Cale in her crosshairs and pull the trigger, _bam_. He blinks and for a split second he's lying in the street in 2019, staring up at the hoverdrone as that world blurred into 2009. But then he's back in the present and Max is still staring at him. He smiles but it doesn't feel right on his face. "Understood."

* * *

Dean is sitting on his bed when Logan finally rolls himself to the room. He looks every bit as shaken as Logan feels. "You all right?" he asks.

"He looks like me," Dean says, staring at his hands. "Me when I was about nineteen but he looks just like me."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Alec," Dean says. "This guy who's body I'm wearing. He could have been me ten years ago but it's 2022 and every time I move it goes just a little too fast." He stops, breathes. "Christ, I miss Sammy. He would have figured this all out already."

"Manticore used DNA from any number of places." Logan hesitates. "I have no idea how they found yours but they did."

"This whole thing just skeeves me out."

"At least you don't have to worry about accidentally changing the past," Logan says lightly.

Dean gives him a watery smile.

Logan smiles back and switches to business. "Time travel and body hopping asides, did anything about what just happened seem really off to you?"

"You seriously think I can judge something like that right now?"

"There's something off about Max," Logan says.

Dean blinks as if clearing his vision. "That's the psycho girl, right? Lady chokes-a-lot. Crazy bitch she may be but damn can she fill out some jeans."

Logan can recognize Dean's autopilot. Knows he's turned his brain off to deal while leaving his mouth to say whatever but he still can't stop himself from saying, "She's not a psycho. She's more or less responsible for assimilating a city full of mutant ex-soldiers into post-Pulse Seattle while simultaneously combating a centuries old breeding cult bend on world domination."

Dean leers at him, a little more involved in the conversation now. "So you're saying you tapped that? Future boy, I'm proud of you. My little Logan's growing up. Seems like only yesterday you were sitting in my passenger's seat, lying your ass off to me."

A blush creeps up Logan's neck. "Max and I have logistical issues."

"If you need _the talk_," Dean leers.

"If Max and I touch, I'm going to die. She was infected with a genetically altered retrovirus specifically targeted to my DNA."

Dean snorts. "Never mind. That kind of talk is not in my repertoire."

Logan settles back. "She knows you're not Alec and she thinks I'm kind of involved with this. They've got us under surveillance."

"And here I was going to suggest joining forces to go kill a fallen angel."

"They're going to kill us if we set foot outside this room," Logan says. "We've got to figure this out."

"Don't you get it, future boy? There's no figuring this out. It's hard enough to find lore on the freaking angels. Before last year me and Sammy didn't even think they could exist. And that's before we even start with fallen angels. Fallen angels are a whole different ball game. There are some who wind up human, others who hang with the devil. The time-travel thing, I only know about that much because of experience. There's nothing, _nothing_ on it in the books. Me and Sam looked."

And if they couldn't find anything on it before the Pusle, Logan doesn't know what they could possibly do about it now.

"So what's future me up to?" Dean asks. "I get if you can't give me information because of the prime directive or whatever but I gotta ask."

"Prime directive?" Logan raises an eyebrow. "Never would have pegged you as a Star Trek kind of guy."

"Shut up."

"You sent me a letter and few post cards," Logan says. "I've dropped you a few tips on cases. Set you up with some ID cards a few times. Talked on the phone once or twice, but it's hard to get a handle on cell reception. Best I can tell you're in better shape than I am."

Dean nods once and looks away.

Logan wheels backward to his makeshift pantry, grabs a bag of chips and tosses it in Dean's direction. "Way I figure it, we do dinner and sleep. Any luck it goes away in the morning."

"That ever happened with us?" He pops a few chips into his mouth and tosses the bag back for Logan. "I dunno about you but I think this needs some alcohol."

Logan laughs. "Here here."

* * *

Three hours later they're both pleasantly drunk over a bottle of Alec's super-strong home brew. They're laughing at something but Logan can't for the life of him remember what set them off. It's been a long time since he laughed this hard, a long time since he got drunk without getting completely miserable. Dean starts pouring himself another glass.

"We're pro'bly under surveillance ri'now," Logan observes. "Wonder what they're thinkin'."

"They're _stupid_," Dean calls. "They can't tell a shapeshifter from a bodyswaper and tha's just _incompetent._"

They dissolve back into giggles. Dean tries to take a sip and nearly falls off his chair, putting a hand on the desk for support. A pile of Logan's neatly ordered papers collapses to the floor. The same pile that should have housed the collection of Dean's letters and postcards over the past three years but didn't.

"Sorry," Dean mumbles, scrambling to pick up the papers and failing rather spectacularly. Then, all at once he freezes. His hand is on a piece of yellowing newspaper. The laughter is gone from his eyes.

"Wassamatter?" Logan asks.

Dean sits back against the desk and hands the paper up to Logan.

It's a short, five inch obituary. It takes Logan a few seconds to focus long enough to read it but once he does he feels suddenly and completely sober.

_Two bodies identified as Sam and Dean Winchester were discovered yesterday..._

The date on the story is August 1st, 2011.

"Thought you said I was all right," Dean whispers. "Fuck, Logan if I was dead you should have just said I was dead. It's not like it would have been surprised."

But this isn't Right. It hadn't been like this yesterday. Dean Winchester was alive in 2022, him and his brother on a swing up the west coast and anytime now, he was gong to stride into Logan's room, alive and fine just like he was in 2009.

"You're not dead. Last post I got was three months ago. You were fine. You and Sam were _fine._"

The make the next connection almost simultaneously. Logan hears Castiel's voice ringing in his ears. _Already the changes from this abomination's plot are trickling through to this present. _

"We still remember how the right way went," Logan says. He presses a hand to his forehead. He can already feel tomorrow's hangover. "Why do we still remember?"

"Castiel said he would shield us as long as he could."

Logan stares straight ahead. Castiel cannot protect them forever. The clock is ticking.


	4. four

**FOUR**

He's dreaming again.

He _knows _he's dreaming.

He has to be dreaming.

"If I can't have you," the girl in the red dress tells him. "I'll make sure you can't have the world either. It's mine to play with. Mine to rule."

_Wake up_, Logan tells himself, _you need to wake up_.

"You're mine, too, Logan." She starts moving toward him. Logan tries to back up but his legs don't work. "In the end, you're going to do exactly what I tell you."

She extends a hand toward his face and Logan finds he can't move to stop her can't do anything but watch and wait for...

He shoots upright in bed.

Dean is sleeping on the ratty couch, in the throws of his own nightmares. Or at least he thinks it is Dean. Without his glasses, the world is shrouded in a soft haze. "Dean," Logan hisses. His head is spinning but it's nothing he can't handle. Dean doesn't move.

It takes a few seconds of blind groping before Logan locates his glasses from the makeshift nightstand, nearly knocking them over in his haste. The world crystallizes into sharp focus but there's nothing of the usual sunlight sinking in through the windows. It's something different. A vague green tinge Logan has never seen before.

He can't find his wheelchair. He doesn't remember exactly how he got to his bed last night but knows it is illogical for his chair to be anywhere outside his reach. "Dean," he calls, swinging his legs over the side of the bed more out of habit than anything.

And then his toes touched down on the cold stone floor.

Everything slows down.

Cool. The floor is cold against his bare feet.

He can feel it.

He wiggles his toes.

Everything is in working order.

The transgenic blood was no doubt gone by now. He shouldn't feel anything. He can't even feel his broken ankle the night before.

Because his ankle isn't broken.

He rotates it slowly, first left, than right. The same sort of strengthening exercises they'd given him when he sprain his ankle during a basketball game in high school.

Perfect.

He snakes his hands back down his spine, searching for the nasty puckered bit of skin. Searching for the scar from the bullet that had robbed his legs from him.

It's not there. There is nothing but smooth skin. This is Logan Cale. Unbroken.

There is a thick scar off his left elbow that he doesn't recognize. It looks like a knife wound but he's never been stabbed. Not there at least. There's a tattoo over his left shoulder that he knows wasn't his work. "Dean!" he says again, more urgently now.

He pushes himself up wobbling on unsteady legs like a newborn court and stumbles toward the couch where he can see Alec's frame fast asleep.

As soon as he touches Dean, he shoots up with such force, Logan nearly loses his balance. Dean is in attack mode until he sees Logan and then he calms in fits and starts. "Hell," he mutters. "Wasn't looking forward to waking up to your face. I was hoping this would be over in the morning."

"Something changed," Logan says. He feels vague stirrings of vertigo that he wants to blame on a hangover but knows he can't.

He had gotten used to life closer to the floor.

"You're on your feet," Dean observes.

"Which means I never got shot," Logan says. "Which means I never should have met you."

"Can this wait? My head is killing me and I haven't even started on thinking yet."

"You're wearing Alec's body and I know transgenics don't get hangovers so get your act together. You're supposed to be the expert on this."

"Fine," Dean rubs at his eyes. "You noticed anything else that changed."

Logan pulls down the collar of his shirt to reveal the tattoo. "This definitely wasn't here yesterday."

Dean's face goes pale. "Why did you get that?"

"I don't even know what the hell it is."

"It's a symbol used for keeping demonic possessions out. Not something the average person needs. Hell, not even something the average hunter needs. Me and Sammy have some but that's a very special case."

"Something changed overnight," Logan says.

His brain is lagging three steps behind his body. He is having problems making connections. He feels like he is back in 2009 all over again, straining to keep hold of his world as his body fought for life in the future. But this is wrong. This feels more wrong than 2009 ever did.

He looks at the green light leaking in through the window. "Dean, something's wrong with the sunlight."

Logan has seen panic before. He has seen Max on the verge of capture. He has seen Zach fighting without memory in the face of his own betrayal. He has see Alec beaten and bruised and left for dead. He has seen Dean himself wild with worry for his missing brother.

But he has never seen this before. Has never seen this level of utter _panic_. Has never seen true terror before. The color is gone from his face. His eyes are wide. His hands are shaking. He looks like he'll break if Logan touches him but he can't help himself. Offering comfort is not something he can do for Max anymore but he can do it for Dean. He lays a hand on his shoulder to steady him. "What is it, Dean?"

"Hell," Dean says after a long moment and Logan cannot recall a more broken sound, like shattering glass on the still air. "It's Hell." His voice is getting stronger, but the tension in his frame is far from gone. "This shouldn't be here."

"Hell?" Logan repeats. "The Pulse was one thing but--"

"This shouldn't be here!" Dean snaps. "This didn't happen. It wasn't like this when I woke up."

"Something changed," Logan guesses. "Something changed when this thing swapped you for Alec. Because you weren't there. Castiel said he was going to try and shield us from it. So everything around us is changing, but we're staying the same."

"We've got to get it back," Dean mumbles. "We can't let—this can't happen."

"You're going to have to tell me what happened back in 2009," Logan says. He is a problem solver. He always has been but he cannot do this without the facts. "After I left. Sam told us to get behind him and then there was light."

"Sam killed Lilith," Dean says listlessly. "He thought it was the Right Thing." He laughs dryly. "I was rooting for it."

Logan thinks of the girl in red who still haunts his dreams. "Can't say I'm sorry to hear it."

"The armies of hell were trying to break the sixty-six seals. Cas said they were like locks. Last one breaks and the Devil busts out of Hell. Sam icing Lilith turned out to be seal number sixty-six."

"You said it was three months after that. What happened?"

"Cas dropped by." Dean sounds like he's reciting the story. Like he's on autopilot. Like he's already resigned himself to Hell. "Told me the angels thought it was all part of a divine plan. A war that would end with eternal paradise or damnation. He tried to stop it and they dropped him from their ranks. Blacked him out from angel radio. I don't know much except the Devil's out and I'm supposed to be the only one who can stop him."

"That's a hell of a lot to put on one guy's shoulders."

"Tell me about it." Dean lets out a snort of laughter. "You know I spent four months in Hell. Never told you that whole story, did I? Four months feels like forty years. By the time the angels pulled me out, I was practically dark side. I can't do this again. We need to do something. Now."

"We need to find Max," Logan says. He is moving through a haze. Walking by his own power but he isn't used to it. No matter how strained their relationship was Max was a constant. He needs a constant right now. He'd leaned on Dean the first time, but this time it is Dean who needs his support. There is nothing available for him to hold onto.

"Thought she was looking to kill us if we made an escape attempt."

"That was the yesterday," Logan says. "This is a whole new world."

* * *

They move slowly outside and into the sickly green light. There are screams off in the distant. Logan can barely hear them but to Dean with Alec's borrowed hearing, they must sound impossibly loud. He'd been half afraid that their location had changed completely during the night but after a moment Logan was able to recognize the ruins of Terminal City.

Terminal City has always been run down, the buildings in disrepair, but over the past two years, the transgenics had installed a sort of order to them, a working chaos. They weren't this made maze of burnt out shells in front of him. That was impossible.

Only it isn't impossible. It's right in front of him.

Dean is lagging a step behind him and Logan is half afraid that if he isn't moving, Dean will stop there forever, stuck in the memories of his own time in Hell.

So he starts moving toward Terminal City's weapon's room. It is illogical to think it will be in the same places as the one he knows, even more so to think that it might actually be stocked with munitions, but he has to do something,

It feels like his feet know the way even though his mind is still foggy with confusion. He dodges through the wreckage at a pace just short of a run, stepping nimbly like his body has been doing this his whole life even if his brain has not.

Almost miraculously, there is a room left untouched. Logan knows how to get through, knows how to pick out the nearly hidden doors that open into a rather impressive munitions stalk. Logan stops as soon as he gets in side, almost in awe. He's accumulated a modest arsenal against the supernatural over the past three years but it was nothing like this. There were hex boxes and sawed off shot guns and an array of different charms strewn throughout.

"This looks like one of Dad's old places," Dean mumbles.

The door closes heavily behind them. Logan jumps at the sound.

"Hello?" he calls. "Is anyone here?"

Cavernous silence answers him.

"Max?" he calls.

Logan can just barely make out a gaunt figure with short dark hair through his smudged glasses. "Christo," a gruff voice says.

"Christo yourself."

"Logan?"

It's _Max. _Max coming out from the darkness with too-short hair and sunken eyes. "Yeah," Logan says. "It's me."

She looks at him hard for a moment, something unrecognizable in her eyes and then, moving with what Logan has mentally dubbed the superman blur she suddenly has her arms around him, hugging him tight, her face buried into his neck.

And it's wrong. He can't move to hug her back. He knows the virus in all likelihood does not exist in this alternate world, but still, he cannot shake the wrongness of her touch.

"I though they'd got you." Max mutters. "I woke up and you were just gone."

She makes a move like she's going to kiss him, but Logan finds himself stiffening, flinching away from it with the instinct borne of two year of non-contact. It's not that the spark is gone, it's that he's trained himself to ignore it out of self-preservation.

"Well," Dean says, breaking the silence. "This is awkward."

Max's head snaps away from Logan, locking eyes on Dean with a singularly predatory look he only recognizes from the photos Lydecker had sent him of the X-5 children.

"You," Max growls, draws a knife and lunges for him.


	5. five

**FIVE**

Dean reacts on instinct. Logan can see that much in his eyes. All the humor is gone, replaced by an almost soldier-like proficiency. For the first time since this happens, he sees Alec in his friend. Sees Manticore in his training, in his almost militant fighting style. Dean knows how to fight. His technique is miles ahead of Max who'd stopped her training at age nine.

But Dean is at a disadvantage. Max knows how to use her speed. With Alec's borrowed body, Dean has that kind of speed but doesn't realize it. All his movements that should have been perfectly controlled swing just a little too wide, look just a little wild.

"Max, stop!" Logan calls.

She doesn't stop. The blade swings back and slices through the fabric of Dean's shirt. He stumbles.

Logan has to force himself to touch her, has to mentally override all his instincts to avoid her skin as he reaches out to halt her arm before the blade can bite through Dean's skin.

It is a bad idea. He knows it even before his skin makes contact. After all these years, he still has not learned his lesson. She wheels around almost on autopilot and plunges the knife into his shoulder.

White hot pain seers across his body, shooting up his arm. It feels like getting shot somehow and when he blinks, just for a second he's in 2009 again as Sam Winchester screams, _Get behind me!_

It's Dean and not Max who catches Logan before he hits the floor. "I don't think you've hit anything important," Dean says but his words are warping badly and he closes his eyes again only to see the demon girl in the red dress.

"He's not a demon," Logan mumbles thickly. He blinks and he's in that alley again. The alley in 2009, stunned that he's still alive.

The knife's gone and there's a warm pressure over the wound. "Hold on," he hears Dean say. "Logan, stay with me."

_Kaboom_, the girl in the red dress whispers from the depths of his mind.

* * *

He wakes up groggily two hours later. There's a roaring pain in his shoulder but it's been rather expertly bandaged. He sits up slowly.

"Don't you think you're wasting holy water," he hears Dean say. "Really I've passed all your tests. Iron. Holy water. The Devil's Trap. What the hell do you want to do, tie me down and perform an exorcism?"

"We've had your kind before," Max says. "Infiltration. I don't trust anyone outside Logan."

"Why?" Dean asks. "I mean he seems like Dr. Do-Good but the first few months I knew the guy, he did nothing but lie to me." He looks up, noticing Logan was awake. "Dude, don't get me wrong, you're a stand-up guy but seriously, I was a little thrown by the pathological lying."

"Cut me a break," Logan mutters. He sits down, just out of contact range of Max. "I thought you were a serial killer at the time."

Dean shakes his head. "Fucking shapeshifters."

Logan smiles.

"I'm sorry," Max says. "But exactly how do you know this idiot. Because last I checked, X-5 494 has been possessed by a demon for almost ten years."

"What?" Logan asks. It's not just the idea that bothers him but the fact that Alec, his friend, Alec, had been reduced to no more than a series of numbers.

A barcode.

"There's no demon in here," Dean says. "Promise."

"Like I'm going to take your word for it, 494."

Dean opens his mouth in to retort but Logan beats him to the punch. "That's not 494." He takes a deep breath. "And I'm not the Logan Cale you know."

He doesn't know what he expects. Honestly, he's a little surprised he doesn't get stabbed again. "Okay," Max says, "I'll play. If you're not Logan and he's not the demon possessing 494, who the hell are you?"

"Oh, that's still Logan Cale," Dean informed her with a wide grin. "I just you can just think of him as an earlier model. But I'm not 494 or Alec or whatever the hell you call this guy. My name is Dean Winchester."

Recognition flashes in Max's eyes. "Bullshit. Dean Winchester is dead."

"Trust me sweetheart," Dean drawls. "I'm hard to kill."

"Fine, say I do believe that's really Dean Winchester. Who the hell are you?"

"Still Logan Cale. Just not this world's Logan Cale."

"Like a parallel universe thing? I've met a few people who say they're from a parallel universe."

"What happened to them?"

"They died."

"Sounds promising," Dean snorts.

"How do I know you're really Logan and not some guy trying to fuck with me?"

The knife wound in his shoulder aches, singing her betrayal. "I don't know."

"Who is Eyes Only?" she asks.

"I am," Logan replies. He watches Dean's face crease in recognition out of the corner of his eyes, but he trusts Dean more than he trusts anyone else.

"Where did I live when I was a kid?"

"Manticore."

"How did we meet?"

"You were trying to rob me. Broke into my penthouse through the skylight three years ago."

"Penthouse," Max scoffs. "You seen any building higher than a story standing in the past three years?"

"Hold on," Dean says. "You're telling me this place has been like this for _three years_."

"Closer to ten. But if you were really Dean Winchester, I think you'd know that."

"What happened to Terminal City?" Logan asks before the argument can escalate. He is struggling to keep his voice even but knows something of the pain and frustration has to be seeping through. "Last I saw it was chalk full of transgenics. There's barely a soul here."

Max goes quiet. Her whole body as still as he's ever seen it. "Transgenics."

"Yeah," Logan says. "The Manticore escapees. Twelve of you in '09 and the whole damn facility eleven years after that."

"That didn't happen here," Max says and she's guarded now. "Far as I know I'm the only transgenic out and that's thanks to you."

"Thought these transgenics were supposed to be stronger than your average guy," Dean says. "Don't seem like the types to stop fighting."

But Logan sees where this ends already. It hurts more than he expected. He remembers Jace and Zach and Ben and Gem and Tinga and above all _Alec_. He squeezes his eyes shut. "Dean, you take a Manticore soldier with superior strength and speed who also happens to be used to taking orders and then add Hell busting loose and demons going everywhere. What the hell do you think is going to happen?"

Max is staring at him with a far off gleam in her eyes. "Where you come from, it's not like that? You said there were transgenics in Terminal City."

"A whole city of them," Logan confirms. "They've taken to calling it freak nation."

"I kind of like that."

"That's beautiful," Dean snaps. "Really it is, I'm honored to be a part of this but I'm a little more interested in what the hell happened to me and Sammy and why Hell seems to have won this war."

"Everyone knows this story," Max says. "Back in '09 there was some sort of electronic signal that wiped all the electronics in the country clean. President blamed terrorists. And things went to Hell for about a year. Looting, crime going bezerk. These weird cases of extreme violence no one could explain. There was no internet to connect people so it just sort of stayed like that. Isolated incidents that no one could piece together. But in 2011, the Winchester brothers died and the whole world went to hell. See, story says the Winchesters were trying to stop the apocalypse and ended up bringing it instead. Way my Logan told it to me, Dean Winchester was supposed to be the only one who could stop it. You know kill the Devil or whatever and bring us back into the golden age. I'm not quite buying it."

"No," Dean says faintly. "That sounds about right to me."

Max swallows. "All right then. Good to meet you Dean."

"That's it? Really, after an hour of you poking and prodding at me with holy water iron and whatever the hell you could find, this is what gets you to believe us."

"Maybe I'm an optimist."

"I don't follow," Logan says.

A sly grin crosses Max's features. "If Dean Winchester is alive and is supposedly the only person on this planet who can kill the Devil, it sounds like we've got a second chance at winning this thing."

* * *

There's already a plan in place. Logan doesn't particularly like the notion considering until an hour ago, Max seemed to think this plan was suicide. And to Logan's eyes, it still looks a hell of a lot like suicide by demons. Like going down fighting and taking as much of the enemy down with you.

He's still got a desk here thought the equipment set up on it is highly different. The bare bones needed for an audio-only broadcast. There's also a homemade scrambler and a stack of journals. He has Dean go through them with him while Max slowly and methodically cleans guns.

Logan hates watching her with the guns. Knows that the Max of his universe (not his Max, but the Max he knows) abhors guns and won't touch them even if it means saving her life.

This Max has an array of them. Has some with silver bullets, some packet with rock salt, some iron rounds. It chills him to the bone.

"This is insane," Dean says for the twentieth time in the past hour. "Like really, really suicidally insane. I didn't think you'd have it in you. Not even crazy post-apocalyptic you."

"Yeah," Logan says in a measured tone. The sad thing is, he knows this is in him. It is the same sort of insanity that had overtaken him the summer after he though Max had died. "There's a kind of brilliance to it though."

Take out as many as you can. Leave no survivors.

"The demons are going to rip you both to shreds." Dean observes.

"If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. We're looking to get you a shot at Lucifer."

"We should be looking for a shot to get me home. Not going along with suicidal alterna-you and crazy stabbing lady. "

There is a transcript of the planned Eyes Only broadcast in his hands. Logan skims it over, half amused, half terrified by the changes to his mission. "If Max is right and the two of us are big targets in this reality, you can bet all of the big players are going to show up. Probably including whatever fallen angel that dragged you here in the first place."

"Probably also including i_the Devil/i_."

Logan returns his eyes to the page and doesn't reply.

Because he remembers some of the details to what's been written in his counterpart's sloppy hand. Which means that whatever Castiel had done was starting to wear off.

They are going to have to use this plan, as crazy and suicidal as it seems. There is no other option. They are running out of time.

* * *

Hours later, Logan is sitting against the wall of the makeshift shelter as Max slowly and gently changes his bandages. Dean is already asleep, snoring lightly with a book open on his chest.

"I'm really sorry about this," Max says. "I'm usually pretty good about now stabbing my only ally."

"Don't worry about it," Logan mutters. It doesn't put him on his death bed which already means it was better contact than the Max of his universe. "I've had worse."

As he says that, the gauze catches just a little on the wall behind him and he flinches in pain. Max smiles just a little smugly.

"How did we meet here?" Logan asks slowly. "Got to admit I'm a little curious."

"Four years ago," Max says. "I was possessed. You did an exorcism. I wanted to fight so we started kicking ass together."

"Sounds like we make a pretty good team."

"Honestly," Max replies, "I just think you were glad you weren't on your own anymore. I know I was." She smiles at him, just a little shyly. "So, a girl's got to ask. What's your Max like?"

Logan winces as the bandage comes off completely. The wound hasn't begun to scab over yet, but it isn't bleeding anymore. This body is more equipped with handling pain than he is used to which worries him considering in the past few years he's dealt with quite a bit of pain. "She's untouchable," Logan says finally, smiling at his own private joke. "Strongest person I know."

"And I guess it's the same as here. You and Max leading an army of transgenics out of oppression. Fighting the good fight and all that."

She has begun slowly wrapping fresh gauze around the wound. He can't bring himself to look at her. "Max doesn't need me."

Max hesitates just for a second, a hitch in the way she's wrapping his gauze like he's just broken her world view and he knows in that second that he's never going to have this. Never going to have Max the way this universe's Logan seems to have her. He's never going to be on the same page as her. Never going to be anything but a friend to her.

And he's all right with that. He looks over to the Max in front of him and tries to smile at her. "It's all right. I don't need her either."

* * *

The girl is waiting for him in his dream. Taunting him, throwing up images of 2009 and his 2022 and this 2022 and the past of this universe until he isn't sure what is real anymore. "Pick one," the girl says. "Or lose them all."

Then suddenly, without warning, there is another presence behind him and he feels a blind terror as it says, "You have the most singularly disquieting dreams."

Logan turns around to face the disheveled figure in a trench coat and a tie, dripping blood from his mouth. "You're in my head," Logan says. "Get the hell out. I've got a enough mess of my own without anyone else in here to mess with it."

"This is by far the best way to converse."

"So dreamwalk Dean. My head is my head."

"To dreamwalk, as you say, with Dean would be counterproductive to my current purposes. The demon that caused your predicament has been identified and eliminated."

"Fantastic," Logan says. "Does this mean everything will be back to normal when I wake up or is there some way I can say goodbye to Dean first."

"It is not quite so simple," Castiel intoned. "The effects of this are difficult to unwind by conventional means."

"So use unconventional means," Logan snaps.

"I cannot at the time," Castiel says. "I find that I am injured. I barely possess the required power to maintain this conversation. Since killing the demon didn't work, there is only one other feasible option for reversing this temporal anomaly."

"Why aren't you telling Dean this instead of me?"

"Because I know Dean Winchester and there are certain things he would not consider."

"I don't like where this is going."

"Nor do I." Castiel sighs heavily. "But I do not see any other present option. The spell preformed to bring Dean here was a blood spell and thus the only way to undo it is with another blood letting."

"Not that I'm advocating it or anything, but in a world like this, it shouldn't be too hard to find some blood."

"I am afraid that most of the available blood is... insufficient. It would require the blood of someone who had experienced a shift in time themselves."

Cold realization washes over him. "So it can only be me or Dean."

"It cannot be Dean," Castiel replies. "In Dean Winchester lies the only chance of defeating Lucifer and returning his forces back to Hell. Logan, if this is to succeed, it will require your blood."

Logan can't breathe. "How much?"

Castiel fixes him with a mournful gaze. "I fear it will cost more than you can spare."

* * *

_One more chapter remains._


	6. six

**SIX**

He wakes up in a cold sweat. Max is already awake and stockpiling all available weapons. Dean is giving instructions in the authoritative voice tinged with panic. There are devil's traps all over the floor. "What's going on?" Logan asks. His head hurts and Castiel's voice rings in his ears. i_I fear it will cost more than you can spare./i_

But what is the alternative? He can't stay here. This world is even more broken than the one he knows and his need to fix it has out voiced his need to survive for years.

"Cas paid me a visit last night," Dean says. "We have to move today if we're going to have half a chance at this."

"You talked to Castiel?"

"Yeah, he did the brainwalk thing while I was sleeping.. If we don't fix this in the next day or so, we're going to be stuck here."

"I don't know about you guys," Max adds. "But I'll take pretty much any world over this one. You think you could make the broadcast, Logan?"

"Broadcast?"

"You don't need to do much. Before all this happened you already made the transcript."

That was the plan. It had been in motion for months. He'd contacted ever known band of hunters so they had time to set up their parts, so they had time to organize the mass exorcisms that with luck could turn the tide of this battle. Eyes Only would make the broadcast to signal the movement and they would do it with the location scrambler off. Max and Logan are big enough game to draw a lot of attention. They are the last vestiges of the resistance in the Pacific Northwest. Eyes Only is the one reliable means of disseminating information. Even if the demons knew it was a trap, this was something they wouldn't resist. It is a good plan. It will probably get them all killed, but it is a good plan.

Only he shouldn't know any of the details.

"Logan!" Dean calls. "Sooner would be better."

"I remember this," Logan says quietly. "We've been planning this for months."

Dean catches him by the shoulders, holding him fast. "Logan, I need you to focus. Cas says this thing is going to be there. We need to ice it before you go native on us. I'm not sure I could get out of here on my own."

This is Dean Winchester. This is his friend. He met him in 2009 and now it's 2022 and he's in Alec's body. This should be post-Pulse Seattle, not post-apocalypse Seattle. These are the facts. "Right," he says, standing up and walking toward the small broadcast set-up. "Let's get you back."

"Let's get the both of us back," Dean replies with a grin.

Logan doesn't answer, just shuffles through the papers on the desk until he comes up with the broadcast. The opening mantra is nearly identical to the one he'd devised years ago in the real world.

He fumbles for the broadcast set-up. It's far lower tech than what he is used to but he recognizes it from a broadcast journalism class he'd taken at Yale before the Pulse.

_Want to know a secret? _Dean's form asks him from the depths of a memory that shouldn't be his. _I'm not Dean Winchester. Which means we've still got an ace up our sleeves._

He shakes his head, clears his throat and flashes a smile at Max. He can't bring himself to look at Dean. "Let's do this," Max says.

Logan turns off the signal scrambler and starts the broadcast.

"This is a streaming freedom bulletin via the Eyes Only connection. This messages cannot be traced, cannot be stopped and it is the only free voice operating in this sector. Over the past ten years humanity has live in fear. Fear of the demons. Fear of our neighbors. Tonight it ends. You know what to do. Stay strong in the struggle." Logan takes a deep breath. He forgoes his customary farewell. In this time and place i_Peace. Out/i _ is an almost laughable sentiment. "This is Eyes Only. Signing off."

"How long before they find us?" Dean asks.

"An hour," Max answers. "Probably less."

* * *

It takes forty minutes for the demons to find them and even then they aren't ready. Logan is in a daze, half lost in a memory that shouldn't be his but is. Max has half an arsenal strapped to her chest and a knife that kills demons in her hands. Dean has painted devil's trap in front of every door and salted all the windows. They should be safe.

But the demons don't come through the doors and they don't come through the windows.

They smash straight through the wall.

Logan falls backward in the shock of it. The knife wound in his shoulder screaming its displeasure. Max is moving swiftly through the debris, welding the blade with the smooth fluidity native to Manticore soldiers. Dean is hiding in an almost invisible trench near the wall, pumping iron rounds into them one after another. Logan has six flasks of holy water on his body. His body remembers how this works even though he doesn't and he is surrounded by three demons hissing in pain before he even computes his own movement.

As far as fights go, it is not hopeless. He can hear Dean's voice ringing out the exorcism ritual loud and clear and Max still has the dagger in her hands as she slices her way back toward him.

The fighting slows down, as if the demons are parting ways to make room for something. Logan doesn't know what's happening at first. There is a man—a demon wearing a man at least—standing in the hole that had blown through the wall. The vessel is ordinary. Twenty-years old. Tall. Strong. Handsome. Radiating a sort of terrible beauty Logan has never seen before.

He doesn't know who it is until the atmosphere shifts and it is impossible not to know who it is.

"Dean!" The blade dances forward to bite the neck of a demon and then Max sends it sailing through the air in the direction of Dean, a picture perfect pass.

Until it changes directions in midair and settles with a solid thwack into the Devil's hands.

Max's eyes widen. Dean swears.

"Curious," the Devil says, "I would have expect better from such a troublesome foe."

Logan recognizes what is about to happen. Can see it even as the Devil reaches back his hand. "Dean!" he calls.

Logan gets to Dean just a second before the knife does. He feels his body hitch with the impact. His stomach is on fire. He turns around slowly and coughs blood in Dean Winchester's face. "Run."

The world swims in front of him and he falls to his knees.

* * *

He's never been in this much pain before.

He finds himself strung up by meat hooks. One in his shoulder. One on his palm. One through each calf.

He is still alive and it is still the wrong 2022 but Dean Winchester is still out there and Max is still out there. So there is still hope for the world.

"Mr. Cale, I see you are awake."

The voice is pleasant enough, almost cordial but Logan knows even when he hear it. He can feel this deep in his bones. "Screw you," Logan mutters.

"Such defiance." He can't quite make out the man's form. The world is blurred past recognition he is thankful for this. "But then again I would expect no less from Logan Cale, the great Eyes Only. It's funny to think a man such as yourself could elude me for going on ten years." The blur moves and the left side of his abdomen explodes into pain. "You know I always forget just how frail humans can be. I was hoping you would be stronger yourself."

"I'm not telling you anything," Logan hisses.

"I would not expect you to. And it would seem that your tattoo prevents me from allowing my followers the use of your meat suit. Which means I have no real use of you at all. I just wanted to let you know, your friend Max, the hunters you've mobilized, they will all be dead well before morning." He sighs heavily. "I find it almost a shame for us to leave like this. You, Logan Cale, were very nearly a worthy adversary."

There is a thud around his midsection and if he looked down, he knows he would see the hilt of a sword buried in his chest, just left of his heart_._ This is a fatal wound. He knows it with uttermost certainty. His blood dripping slowly and surely onto the ground and suddenly, something in his head breaks and there are memories invading his vision tumbling on over the other in a mad melody of what was and what could have been.

_He is twenty years old and over thirty watching himself from the distance wondering if he's gone completely insane a blond haired woman tells him. This is all completely and utterly impossibly ,he wakes up and it's 2019 again and his legs don't work and it's all just a tangle of flesh and blood and he doesn't think he's ever needed to get out of here as badly as he needs to get out of here right now. Another twenty seconds and he's a good as dead to the world. Dean Winchester is dead but it's not really Dean Winchester is it dude, what year is it __Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas __I'll make sure you can't have the world either fear it will cost you more than this is a streaming freedom---_

There is black seeping into the corner of his eyes and his blood makes tiny plopping sounds as it hits the floor. How much has he lost? How much can he afford to lose? Someone's screaming and the sound is so raw, it feels like his throat is tearing. He can't think anymore. He wishes he could have---

---He wakes up to the television blaring news about an explosion in sector four. He doesn't see Dean. Doesn't see Max. Doesn't see the demon.

If he is dead, then dead looks a hell of a lot like the world he has lived in his whole life.

There is a sudden rap on the door and a sandy-haired X-6 peaks his head inside. "Mr. Logan? We need you in the med bay. Mr. Alec's been asking about you."

"Alec?" Logan says, his throat suddenly dry.

"He was in an explosion," the kid says. "He woke up but he keeps saying he needs to make sure you were all right."

"Why? He was the one in the explosion."

"I don't know, Mr. Logan."

"Let's go then."

He tries to stand up but can't because his legs don't work. His ankle is broken and the transfusion's lingering effects are gone. He pushes the wheelchair deftly out the door. The hall to the infirmary is longer than he remembers but the faces are familiar. The conversations are familiar. This is how it should be.

He can hear Alec before he sees him. "I'm fine. Where's Logan? Is he all right? Someone's got to check in on him."

"Alec," Logan says. "Long time, no see."

"Are you crazy?" Max asks. "Try one day, no see."

"Logan!" Alec pushes himself to his feet. "Man, am I ever glad to see you."

There is something subtly different about his speech patterns. Something that rang of the Winchester brothers.

"Me and Sam figured it out," Alec says. "The only way to switch us back was with the blood and it was damn clear I couldn't do it because if it killed me, it killed Dean and the world was damned... I though I was going to wake up with you dead."

"I didn't think I was going to wake up," Logan admits.

Alec's eyes go dark and for a second, Logan flashes onto the obituray he'd found. Sam and Dean Winchester dead in 2011. "I didn't think I was waking up either."

"It really happened then?"

"Either it happened or I am one seriously screwed up genetic freak."

"Understatement of the century," Max mutters, crossing her arms.

"You have any idea what happened to the Winchesters?" Alec asks. His face is wrought with worry and Logan knows in that second that was gone for a lot longer than he was.

"If things are back to normal, they should be all right."

"But you don't know?"

"Dean can more than take care of himself," Logan says. "And you can bet he can take care of his brother as well."

Alec doesn't say anything for a good long while. In fact, Logan's about ready to turn to leave. Max keeps giving him a look like he needs to explain but this thing that has happened to him is not hers, will never be hers and she will never understand. It's all right though. He's not sure he'd want her to understand.

"I'm glad you're all right, Logan," Alec says finally.

"Good to be home," Logan whispers.

* * *

Four hours later, Logan and Alec are hold up in Logan's room drinking the same bottle of homemade brew, Logan had shared with Dean only days before. Logan is at the tail end of his story. The one than began three years ago and thirteen years ago both at the same time. It is a story he has told no one except Dean Winchester and the weight off his chest makes him feel lighter than he has in years.

There is a knock on the door that interrupts their conversation and Logan slightly drunk and slightly melancholy mutters, "Probably Max."

"Come on in, Maxie!" Alec calls. "Got a couple of shots with your name on it."

The door cracks open but it's not Max who enters. It's a pair of men, forty years old with graying hair and more than a few scars. Logan feels his face twisting into a real, genuine smile.

"Hey there, Logan," Dean Winchester says. "Been a while."

(end)

_And so concludes the Worlds 'verse. Thanks for sticking with me on this one, guys._


End file.
